When I was a student,
In Lucretius I read
Of the pleasure that people found
In watching from shore
The great troubles of others
On stormy and turbulent seas.
It seemed to me then
(for I knew it a truth;
the same was inside of me)
And it seems to me now—
Mankind can be very unkind.

Pete Crowther

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/schadenfreude-2/